


Happy With You

by flyingisland



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Post Ketsu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 16:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6814117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom visits Shizuo in the hospital, but healing takes more time than he anticipates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ichimatsusama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ichimatsusama/gifts).



He brings Shizuo flowers when he visits the hospital.

The ruckus about the city has faded back to the regular routine. Red-eyed zombies converted back to tired business men, to housewives and unruly teens. Simon and Dennis work on rebuilding the damages at Russia Sushi. Varona sleeps off the shock of her wounds one room over, and Shizuo throws a fit about something seemingly mundane as a group of nurses struggle to calm him down.

He spots Tom right as he’s about to rap his knuckles against the door frame. Everyone pauses, eyes trailing over to meet him, and Shizuo’s muscles slack instantly. He doesn’t smile, not exactly, but something shifts in his eyes. They’re a little darker than Tom remembers. There’s something vulnerable swimming near the surface. There’s a fear, maybe, of what he came so close to becoming. There’s the nervous trembling that never ceases in his breathing. There’s the arm that still won’t move in the sling, and a dozen or more scratches burning red against his pale skin.

The nurses file out, leaving him with the task of keeping Shizuo in check. All three of them, overtaken by stress. He understands that keeping Ikebukuro’s strongest contained must take a lot out of them, but he wishes, maybe a little hypocritically, that anyone in the world could have the patience to treat him like the scared, shaken-up and overwhelmed person that he is right now.

He hides it behind many walls—rage, his quiet coldness, the jagged edges of his stare—but Tom picks through his defenses easily. He finds the raw wounds that Shizuo is hiding. He knows that he’s even too afraid to lick them clean.

Setting the flowers on the night stand, he sends Shizuo a smile, combs gentle fingers through his hair, and he says, quietly, “You seem to be doing well.”

Shizuo snorts. He always seems to be doing well. His body, a cage binding him to the strength that he so despises, will fail to break completely, time and time again.

No matter how many times he tries.

Tom takes a seat. He tugs his hand away. Shizuo is gazing through the crack in the curtains out the window. It's a rainy day, and droplets cling to the glass. Thunder rolls in the distance as lightening temporarily illuminates the sky. Through the grays of the clouds, Tom wonders if Shizuo still searches for the sun.

But he thinks to himself that it's entirely too poetic, even for a tragic character like Shizuo. He’d be mangled if Shizuo understood the sorts of things that Tom thinks about him. He’d be a pile of bones and skin, torn muscles and leaky organs, indecipherable from anything even remotely human, surely.

Shizuo’s fingers play with the corner of his blankets. The IV extending from his arm jostles slightly with each of his movements, but he pays it no mind. It’s been over a decade since he hurt himself for the very first time. By now, these hospital visits have surely grown so monotonous that he barely notices the needles anymore.

Silence stretches out between them, but he doesn’t feel smothered in the least. Shizuo has always been so quiet, always saying only what he feels really needs to be said until he’s angry, and Tom understands more than anyone that he’s never in the mood to talk after a fight with Orihara Izaya.

And last night, the final fight, might have been the worst one he’ll ever experience.

He doesn’t know what went down exactly. He knows that Varona saved him somehow. He knows that Orihara was planning something sinister. Shizuo has been breathing unevenly for hours now, the only reason why the doctors haven’t sent him home. He’s scuffed up and more injured than he has been in years. Tom has never seen him like this. He’s carved up like a jack-o-lantern, bruised and scabbed, bloody and aching. He hasn’t touched his breakfast, not even the pudding. Tom knows that this means something serious. It’s silly, of course, but even in a rage, Shizuo always finds time for sweets.

They watch the rain through the window. Tom stands and paces forward, pulling open the blinds.

“Your brother is visiting soon, isn’t he?” He asks, if only the fill the quiet, “He just finished his latest film?”

Shizuo hums his agreement, and they’re done talking for a while.

Time passes slowly. Shizuo eyes the flowers for only a fraction of a second. His lashes hang low over his eyes, and Tom finds something in the tenseness of his shoulders that indicates that maybe he thinks Tom-san was mistaken. Tom-san definitely meant to bring those to Varona’s room instead.

“O-oh, those,” He laughs, scratching the back of his head as his own bashfulness gets the better of him, “I thought, you know, it’s so gloomy in here. Maybe you’d like something to look at that could… brighten things up.”

Shizuo gives him a look that makes him feel utterly foolish. His mouth is a firm line, eyes hard. He maintains that look for five entire heartbeats before he looks away. There’s a curse on his lips, and he breathes out hard (with a shakiness that does not avoid Tom’s attention), before pressing a finger against the bridge of his nose. There are no glasses there, but it’s a nervous habit. Tom knows that he does it when he’s particularly embarrassed. He knows that he prefers hiding his eyes. There’s too much to be found there.

“I’m not a woman.”

The words hang there for a long time. Tom can almost see them manifesting in the air. Shizuo has a way of changing the temperature around him—adding heat with the sheer force of his tremendous temper, chilling his victims to the bone with the eagerness of his threatening words. And now, Tom feels a warmth spreading out across his cheeks. He feels like a moron, like maybe he really should have chosen chocolates instead. He’d stood in the aisle at the grocery store for entirely too long deciding. An old woman had joked with him, _“Are you in trouble?”_ and he’d laughed like he wasn’t an old pervert buying gifts for his unsuspecting employee.

 _“Ah, no,”_ he’d answered, unsure of if he should lie or not, _“She’s… not feeling well.”_

She’d told him to go with flowers. Chocolates, while delicious, do not promote good health or healing.

“I know that,” he sighs finally, itching to pull the carton of cigarettes from his pocket and light one right in the hospital room, “but flowers aren’t just for women.”

Shizuo huffs. He stares at a stain on the wall, focuses all of his frustration, his bubbling anger, his fear and loathing on that one spot. Tom watches as the emotions play across his face. He watches as Shizuo finds the strength to calm himself down.

And he places a hand on top of Shizuo’s, ignoring the responding flinch. He forces Shizuo to look him in the eyes, and he says, as bravely as he can muster, “Shizuo, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Shizuo doesn’t quite look at him then, but he nods. It’s the best he’s going to get.

“I want to tell you not to get mad,” he murmurs, furrowing his brows, laughing at himself for his own cowardice, “But I might deserve to get punched for this.”

There’s quiet for a long moment. He can feel Shizuo’s pulse against his fingers, the soft rhythm picking up as he builds up the words he wants to say and Shizuo mistakes his silence for whatever he’s afraid of hearing.

“Shizuo, I—“

“Are you firing me?”

And he laughs, because Shizuo is predicable sometimes, and Shizuo is always so insecure, even when he doesn’t need to be. He’s making a confession, and his poor employee thinks that he’s in trouble. He wonders what kind of life could lead a person to always fear for the worst, but he knows. He’s traveled the streets with him, watched so many fights break out that Shizuo was not looking for. He’s witnessed the attacks, he’s witnessed the violence.

He knows, and so he forces himself to calm down, to tighten his grip on Shizuo’s hand, and to say the words that are threatening to spill out of his mouth no matter what happens.

“No, I,” He stops to clear his throat. Shizuo flicks his gaze to their hands, shaking only barely as his ears redden and the color spreads slowly to his cheekbones, “I’m in love with you, Shizuo.”

The air between them fades to nothing. He’s choking on his words, watching as something ugly comes to rest in the shadows of Shizuo’s eyes. There’s anger there, barely concealed, and a startling hurt. He doesn’t understand it, but Shizuo tears his hand away. He won’t look Tom in the eye.

“That’s not funny, Tom-san.”

The rain beats against the window. Nurses shuffle about outside of the door. Heart monitors beep, the smell of Shizuo’s lunch growing warmer mingles with the sanitizer and the medicine in the air. He doesn’t know how to fix this. He doesn’t know if he can tell Shizuo anything to convince him that these feelings are real.

“I’m not trying to be,” he says quietly, “I mean it.”

And Shizuo smiles, but there’s no happiness there. It’s a morbid look, resignation tugging at the corners of his lips, self-loathing tainting the color on his cheeks. He lets Tom take his hand again. He turns his face toward the window.

And he asks, even quieter, “Why?”

Time passes slower and slower as they sit together, until he finally leaves Shizuo alone for the night.

They don’t talk again before he leaves. Shizuo doesn’t look at him, even as he steps through the threshold of the door.

But the next day, he returns.

With chocolate this time.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for a very lovely person who runs a really nice TomShizuo blog on tumblr (tom-shizuo.tumblr.com). It was supposed to be sweet, but somehow it ended up a little sad! I'm so sorry. There are also errors with the plot, of course, since I'm sure Shizuo and Varona didn't go to the hospital after the big "Shizuo-Izaya-Fight", but I wanted to write them in a hospital specifically, so I took some liberties. 
> 
> I hope you like it!


End file.
